It is interesting to see, in these extracts from S. Augustine, and in those which follow from Montalembert, the points of likeness and difference between the Christian ideal of love and that of Plato. Both are highly transcendental, both seem to contemplate an inner union of souls, beyond the reach of space and time; but in Plato the union is in contemplation of the Eternal Beauty, while in the Christian teachers it is in devotion to a personal God. “If inanimate nature was to them an abundant source of pleasure they had a life still more lively and elevated in the life of the heart, in the double love which burned in them—the love of their brethren inspired and consecrated by the love of God.” _Monks of the West_, introdn., ch. v. “Everything invited and encouraged them to choose one or several souls as the intimate companions of their life.... And to prove how little the divine love, thus understood and practised, tends to exclude or chill the love of man for man, never was human eloquence more touching or more sincere than in that immortal elegy by which S. Bernard laments a lost brother snatched by death from the cloister:—‘Flow, flow my tears, so eager to flow! he who prevented your flowing is here no more! It is not he who is dead, it is I who now live only to die. Why, O why have we loved, and why have we lost each other.’” _Ibid._ “The mutual affection which reigned among the monks flowed as a mighty stream through the annals of the cloister. It has left its trace even in the ‘formulas,’ collected with care by modern erudition.... The correspondence of the most illustrious, of Geoffrey de Vendôme, of Pierre le Vénérable, and of S. Bernard, give proofs of it at every page.” _Ibid._ [Sidenote: _Saint Anselm_] Saint Anselm’s letters to brother monks are full of expressions of the same ardent affection. Montalembert gives several examples:— “Souls well-beloved of my soul,” he wrote to two near relatives whom he wished to draw to Bec, “my eyes ardently desire to behold you; my arms expand to embrace you; my lips sigh for your kisses; all the life that remains to me is consumed with waiting for you. I hope in praying, and I pray in hoping—come and taste how gracious the Lord is—you cannot fully know it while you find sweetness in the world.” [Sidenote: _To his Friend Lanfranc_] “‘Far from the eyes, far from the heart’ say the vulgar. Believe nothing of it; if it was so, the farther you were distant from me the cooler my love for you would be; whilst on the contrary, the less I can enjoy your presence, the more the desire of that pleasure burns in the soul of your friend.” [Sidenote: _To Gondulph_]